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Bloody Revelations     The place chosen for a slightly more meeting than a first-deathlord murder celebration and tactical planning session (or borderline negotiations at knifepoint) is neither the exorbitantly fancy recreational complex of one time previously, nor the small fraction of the Manse seen by some long before that. Stygia, the capital city of the entire Underworld, is still easily the place of choice however, both due to being such a ridiculously massive metropolis that it's easy *enough* to reach by sparse Warpgates littered around its districts, and it's also impossible for someone to cause a fuss in without drawing notice.

    The broad strokes of stepping out into the Underworld are immediately felt by anyone with a pulse. Even outside the dull and somber sky, the too-pale moon hanging midway to the horizon, casting washed out light on dark terrain affected by a universal air of heavy, almost physically weighty stillness and cold sterility is unignorable. All 'ambient energy' here feels backwards, like being rubbed the wrong way in a sense one might not have known was possible. A cold, shadowy, mirror world sort of tingle.

    The broad strokes of Stygia itself though, being a city thousands of years old where the first ghosts to ever appear settled down, is anything but empty or bleak, though. The fact is that when the dead pile up for thousands of years, even though only a small fraction become ghosts, even when a lot of those eventually disappear, and even when most are spread out across the Underworld, is that a capital city of any kind is ridiculously, disgustingly huge; a metropolis of such scale that it'd take nearly a week to walk from one end to the other.

    Thankfully, nobody is dunked right in the middle of it, left to wander between gigantic baroque towers of dark and pale stone and glass, barely able to see the sky for how high they reach and how densely they cluster, nor are they left to contend with crowds of millions of ghosts, somewhat pallid and washed out, but entirely substantial here, like real human beings who all just happen to be very quiet, have clothes from a thousand time periods, and have some visible cause of death somewhere on them. They aren't left to deal with being zeroed in on by mysterious merchants of bizarre wares, bogged down by establishments desperate for their patronage as living people, singled out by pickpockets, Essence-thieves, or even less savoury characters, or the alleys and shortcuts that defy the laws of space, and the strange creatures that lurk and run between them.

    It's a nice spot. Somewhere in a district lit by soft blue lanterns along winding roads through carefully cultivated gardens and parks, where the land is dedicated to weird variations of high-class parlours, inns, theatres, tea houses, casinos, and other such places. Soft music can be heard from just about anywhere, from various performances, and for whatever reason, though all of the carefully kept gardens (including the floral, meditative, and zen kind) are made of grasses and trees and flowers that don't grow anywhere in the living world, either overwhelmingly dark or exotically misshapen and aglow with odd colours, the place is perpetually awash in a light dusting of white cherry petals, as if it's perpetually the dying days of spring.
Bloody Revelations     There's a whole park reserved for this, with meandering cobble roads under stout and gnarled trees with thick canopies, sided by deep pools with white lilies, baroque statues and roadside shrines, and intricate patterns raked into sand and gravel. It's right by a river too, black as obsidian and just as still and glassy, save where rocks have been intentionally set up to disturb it and make it give off a trickling sound. It's wide enough that the lights of the next establishment over are needed to mark the opposite shore, as much further along, one can see that it serves as a tributary into a much bigger one, upon which ancient yachts and cutters are slowly adrift.

    It's definitely, definitely reserved. Easily told not just because it's empty, and not just because whoever owns the place would lend it over exclusively in a heartbeat for the kind of payment a powerful Necromancer can front up, but also for the fact that there are definitely a few of those frankly satanic floating skull creatures patrolling slowly around the outside, to deal with spies, fans, and idiots alike. There's a fairly big black iron and onyx-topped table and chairs set up on a black grassy stretch adjacent to the edge of the river, stacked already with books, drinks, gems, and an odd assortment of knicknacks.
Starbound Flotilla "I advise that, just this once, you follow his advice."
"Hmph. Sympathizers are everywhere. I won't."
"Who would sympathize with /that/? A kingdom of lies doesn't get much sympathy."
"Begrudging. I can agree there, at least. I'm glad we chose this side."
"Floran thinksss, we work hard, and desserve reward!"
"Yep. So, just take my advice. For once..."

"Just relax."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCJzIesrl5U

    The Flotilla approaches the park through soft-lit streets in an expensive hovering vehicle that's long and luxurious, a wonderful ride. Even George isn't smoking his usual cigarettes. They emerge in a friendly cluster, chattering in a positive and upbeat way (as upbeat as someone like Albert can get, anyway) and heading right for the reserved table amid the park. George is almost immediately to the drinks. Pavo's eyes are on the gems about as quickly. Moonfin, for his part, looks for Bloody Revelations, with his usual air of smugness given a particular air of triumph.
Staren     Staren appears without armor for once -- the people of Stygia should get to know his face and appearance as more than just a warrior.

    Turns out he's not seeing much of the city today, though. This is a... park? Staren gives friendly nods to any ghosts he passes on the way in, then looks around and takes in the surroundings as he makes his way to the meeting spot. The feeling of underworld Essence all around is jarring at first, but not unfamiliar after his previous visits. It's something he should get used to if he plans to manipulate it, anyway.

    "Good to see you again." Staren greets his allies, and... elects not to take a seat right away, pacing around the meeting area and looking around. He's been sitting at his desk on his ship most of the day, he can take a moment to stretch his legs.
Haguro A black-haired woman is already standing by the table, fidgeting slightly as she suppresses the badly-hidden need to see if there's anything helpful to do. Being part of a semi-celebration without actively helping out clearly doesn't sit well for the woman in the purple blouse, altohugh she relaxes visibly when the Flotilla approaches the table at the park.

"Ah! Welcome, everyone. It's... Um. Good to see you again." Haguro chuckles awkwardly as she greets the Flotilla, taking a moment to process Staren's appearance sans armor before saluting him and the Flotilla more formally afterwards. She takes a moment to snap a few pictures of the crew as well as the stuff on the table before going around the park proper to take even more pictures.

Who knows when the next time she'll be here is going to be? It'd make for good souvenirs for everyone back home.
Azure Armature Another big table. Another large park. Another river, guarded by spirits. Another spread of finery, but this one cast in strange blacks and a muted panoply of off-colors rather than a vibrant orchestration of a hundred needlepoints of brilliance that all demanded appreciation.

"Mmm." Armature mutters noncomittaly, as Haguro frets about seemingly meaningless things. "This location is secure. Don't worry." She offers, withdrawing a metallic cylinder from one of her harnesses and clearing out the internal chamber with a finger.

"I believe this is the event that Staren has been waiting for - the explanation on ghosts? If it's not a mission briefing or debriefing, then I suppose I'll let the local security handle things. Wearing oneself out being constantly vigilant all the time even for low-security outings wears down your edge."

She continues loading her electronic cigar-like object with various oils and a crystal from various pockets, before closing the chamber and placing it before her on the table.

"Unless this is a debriefing?"

She hovers between putting her feet up and reclining her chair at some mathematically precise angle and not doing so. It's important to reconfirm mission objectives.
Lezard Valeth Stygia is a nice place.

Lezard wants none of it. The blatant situation there is nothing he wants to have to spend his time contending with, and the effort required to deal with the inevitable complications are not even close to what's on his To Do list at the moment.

That list does, however, include attending this meeting. He has a lot to learn and despite his not inconsiderable skill, he is not a master of the dead. Observing some of the works of the Abyss has helped enlighten him to further depths, and those depths need to be explored... and exploited.

Lezard joins the assembly, for once not putting on airs or trying to intimidate anything. He seems almost... banal, really, compared to the variety of Creation, just another cloaked nerd. He sits down and waits patiently to GET SOME LEARNIN. "What does not grow, falls into decay. It would be foolish to not avail oneself of knowledge freely given." He nods to his compatriots at that in greeting.
Bloody Revelations     "A little of both." comes the voice arriving from just out of the shaded path, though more pitch black shadow than leaf-dappled moonlight. "There's not a lot left to discuss; the Bodhisattva Anointed by Dark Waters is dead and dealt with. Skullstone will survive perfectly fine without him for a little while. Possibly a number of years before its bureaucracy completely collapses under the weight of its sheer corruption and cronyism designed to support him. Without the Hungry Stone and the Foundry of Souls, ghosts will begin reincarnating without his say-so and cause civil unrest right away. The New Order philosophy is doomed. My Liege is already prepared to take it when that happens. That wolf-pelt wearer changed sides quickly enough, as did his other surviving Deathknight. I don't know what happened to the Solar and I don't care."

    There is no mention of Island 5. Probably best that it continues to be not acknowledged as existing.

    Bloody Revelations walks into the clearing, flanked by a handful of those hovering horned skulls of obsidian, hauling an ebony box between them by silk ropes clenched in their fangs. Arriving at the table, she bids them drop it in the dark grass with a muffled thump, then fan back out again, eyes glowing faintly with that shade of hellfire that doesn't seem to appear anywhere in the Underworld's myriad ghostly hues of flame but her own work.

    Oddly, the woman is limping. Just a little, but it's visible. Her long gloves of whatever-that-material-is don't fully hide some of the burns visible on her upper arms where they start to naturally unravel. The corner of her lip is split, as if she'd bitten down on it too hard. It's the most 'wounded' anyone has seen her look, but she has a lively attitude at least; apparently this district is her favourite.

    The drinks are perfectly legitimate, no doubt brought here at great cost. They're both a selection of teas that aren't muddled by the faint haze of what smells like aromatic oils and incense all around, and a certain amount of liquor of both the red wine and sake-esque variety. The gems are mostly varieties of of shards, chunks, and faceted cuts of some kind of glowy crystal, cold and tingly to the touch, some just giving off a flat light, while others contain a sort of flickering blue-white flame. Otherwise it's a scattering of onyx, black diamonds, opals, jade, and things of that nature, and a number of baroquely carved black coins set with thumbnail-sized smoky grey jewels in the middle.

    The general 'magical alignment' of the place is such that Lezard can suspect that his usual 'fling fire and lightning around' magic would drain pretty quickly here, but his alchemical and summoning, and of course necromantic bent might actually profit by the very thin veils that keep reality in line. Staren walking around and giving people the Captain America thumbs up results in either people either following him around (at a distance) and calling to him from afar like a weird fanclub afraid to say too much, or hastily avoiding eye contact and walking (or floating) the other way.
Bloody Revelations     "Getting it out of the way first." says Bloody Revelations. She takes a seat, and catches the latch of the box with her toe and kicks the lid off in the same motion, then snaps her fingers, and what looks unmistakably like Haguro's Ne-Class getup (sans weird turret maws, it's just the black clothes and armour) floats up out of it in a neatly assembled pile, clunking heavily down on a clear space of the table. On closer inspection, there are a number of small, circular 'ports' in the back of the legs, elbows, and rear shoulders, that glow very faintly deep blue, as do a circle of barely-visible and hyper-elaborate etchings between the shoulder blades. The whole thing tingles with an intense, but faint, magic, and on close inspection, is made of Underworld black jade, rather than that Abyssal iron.

    "As promised. I still think you wore it better when you were all ghost white like that, though. It's a better look for you." she says to Haguro, apparently having commissioned this after sinking before. "We'll discuss what you owe me for the trouble later~"

    With a swipe of her hand, she knocks three weighty tomes off the top of the pile, which fall open to reveal complicated astronomy and anatomy charts inside, as well as diagrams of what appear to be meridians. "You get four major topics. Death and reincarnation is one. How ghosts form and function is two. Prayer and grave goods is the third. The Underworld, Labyrinth, and Necromancy makes four. Ask your questions."
Haguro When Bloody Revelations arrives to answer Azure Armature's question, Haguro takes the latter's advice and finally settles down. She's still standing, of course, but she's not fully on alert as she's been for the past... However long she's been here.

It's a hard habit to break.

The limp is a little more worrisome, but Haguro holds her tongue and tries not to let it worry her too much even though it shows rather plainly on her face. "Ah.. Thank you for having us, Miss Bloody Revelations. Is..." Etiquette and convenience war inside of her as she samples some of the drinks to distract herself, glancing around every so often at the observers from outside.

Best not to draw more attention than necessary. Alas, that does mean holding off on unimportant, yet nagging questions for the time being. Instead, the cruiser turns her gaze to the box being opened. It takes her a moment to realize what that getup is before straightening up and moving over to rifle through it. "This is... Oh! Thank you very much. I'll make good use of this when you need me, hopefully without the... Um. Sinking again."

She tries putting on a joking tone at that last part, but it's still horribly awkward and stilted. Haguro's up to two now, but dying still sucks! She resists the urge to try it all on now, of course, but the ports get a curious look.

Testing will be needed in the near future.

"Is there a way to free souls used in soulsteel? Like in the... Um." She gestures vaguely with her arms, and it's not immediately clear what shape she's even trying to make between bending her arms at right angles and straightening them. A moment later, and then she just gives up and holds her hand up with all fingers splayed out.

The Deathknight didn't mention the place for a reason, and Haguro's not going to name it just in case.
Staren     Staren nods at Lezard's comment, then his ears perk up when he hears Bloody Revelations, and he turns towards her with interest. He quirks an eyebrow when he sees she's limping, but comes to the conclusion that if she wished to discuss it she would do so unprompted.

    As she moves to sit down, he does too, and slips the goggles over his eyes to inspect any flow of essence present in the gems. He'll partake of some of the tea -- he's not one for alchohol.

    He gives Haguro's new armor a curious glance, and looks over the books, thinking for a moment before asking questions.

    "What remains of the original person when they reincarnate? Could it be increased, as a backup plan if fixing ghosts takes longer? What can you tell us about the process you use to enable ghosts to feel alive again, and why are they unable to have such feelings in the first place?" It can't be as simple as loss of the lower soul, or necromancers could just reattach it. "What's the deal with the Labyrinth, I mean, why did it show things from our worlds when we went there? Do we face any obstacles in turning the Underworld into a self-sustaining system in Creation's absence? And... what can manipulation of necrotic essence do besides manipulate the undead? What do you need to do to become a necromancer anyway? I mean..." Staren scratches his head. "You said I probably couldn't do it, but I'm curious anyway. Is it like that Sorcery test where you have to give something up that kinda defeats the point of learning sorcery to achieve your current goals in the first place?"

    He wonders what questions the others will have the most interest in... at Haguro's, he nods to her, "We've seen her do that, although I'm curious how it works too..."
Lezard Valeth Having to use mostly his own power to charge his sorcerous might here would be Problematic. But this is why he is a man of many talents. Specialization is for insects. He thinks little of the ghastly apparitions, and acquires himself something fine to drink, settling in with the look of someone who is enjoying work well done. "The news is quite good then. I trust everything has worked according to the plan?"

The deployment of the battle gear causes Lezard to squint at it, immediately looking ther design over. "Interesting. This should give you more options, Haguro." He claps lightly. "Well done. Enjoy it in... good health?" He says, chuckling lightly.

However, things move quickly to the core of why they are present. "My work here has certainly showed me that there is a great deal more to learn. I am interested in learning more about how Necromancy works here and how it interfaces with the various parts of the metaphysics. This, of course, will require a great deal of discussion on a variety of topics, but that is my general goal."

No point in hiding it. Frankly, to do such would be insulting in this company. Let your ambition out to play.
Starbound Flotilla     "Be surprised, y'know, how long a corrupt, shitty little hellhole of corrupt bureaucracy can hold together. Especially if someone can snag top-dog place fast enough, and lock everyone else out. Still, a headless chicken can die of starvation and all." George says, taking his own seat. With how relaxed everything is, it's quite surprising that he's /still/ not smoking that cigarette. He doesn't speak up much when the questions are offered answers. One does though.

    "Prayer." Pavo says, her voice speaking with the tone of a missile that has locked onto a target. "And not just that godly business either, I want to know how it works for the ghosts, the people, whatever. I want to know every way the Order of the Holy Ego can turn prayer to power." Her interest is entirely selfish. How can it benefit her? How could it benefit her cult? What can she do to use and abuse it?

    The next one with interest is, it seems, Moonfin. What's his deal? He'll ask after Pavo's issue is dealt with. "Part of the foundation of my assistance," He explains to Haguro. "Is that she make use of her ability to free the souls trapped in soulsteel. The abhorrent material is one of many displays of this particular universe's unbalanced nature. And giving those who feed on suffering a way to compete in our metals business certainly antagonizes our financial interests, furthermore."
Azure Armature "I can't comment as to the aesthetic difference." Armature weighs in on the matter of pretty boat cosmetics (they're definitely paid cosmetics, she said 'owe', Haguro, you're now Pay-To-Win scum).

Leaning back at a perfect and proper 45-degree angle, and putting her boots up on the table, Armature retrieves her cyber-cigar from the desk with a practiced bump-and-catch, depressing the activation stud and drawing in a deep breath through the exhaust-port looking air intake at the base.

When she exhales, it smells nothing like the medical chemicals that George prefers to light up, and more like an auto body shop crossed with a hookah den, the smoke curling into geometric shapes and radial spirals.

"But your combat effectiveness doesn't seem to change in either way, so I have no suggestion."

Translation: She thinks you're fine, Haguro, don't lose sleep over it.

As for the questions... Azure leans in slightly at Moonfin's request. "Where I come from, Soulsteel doesn't have mortal souls in it. It's simply a material - naturally occuring in the landscape. It's strange that here it is so different. Is it because of your lack of soulstones, Revelations?"
Haguro "Right! It's... I'm not sure how they work, but I'll have to try them out soon." Haguro smiles softly at Staren and Lezard, somehow managing to find more humor even in the latter's attempt at humor than her own. She should probably be more worried about that even being the case compared to how she was a little more than a year or two ago, but... Well.

People change. It's not such a bad feeling to be able to find humor even in things like this.  Azure Armature gets a thoughtful look from the cruiser at the mention of aesthetic and combat differences (or lack thereof), and she takes another sip of her mystery drink. "I... think I prefer this form myself. A-at least while I'm like this. When I was like that, I'm pretty sure I felt the opposite. I wonder which one is more accurate, though..."

She's totally going to lose sleep over it.

Pavo's explanation has the shipghost thinking, and then she poses another question for the Deathknight. "Your help would be greatly appreciated in doing that, yes. Um... IS there a way for people like us to do that as well? I-if we can't reach you, for example."
Bloody Revelations     "I believe you're the first person who's actually *asked* me." the Abyssal says to the !Abyssal (the different kind). "Not usually. The stuff was discovered a long, long time ago, back in the time where ancient humanity and the first Exalted overthrew the Primordials, and where three hundred Solar Exalted ruled the world by the mandate of Heaven. It was a curiosity to them then, and then when they realized it was useful, they started making it a punishment for the worst criminals, and then they fudged and fudged and did it more and more, and shortly before they were all killed, they were arranging to have people executed and turned into soulsteel whenever it was convenient. They never thought about *undoing* it. Even if the souls would be trapped there in agony for all eternity, they're barely aware, and they're not anyone *important*; all of that. The point was to be essentially as 'indestructible' as the other four Magical Materials, though we know those aren't *really* quite as hard to break as people would like you to believe."

    She pauses. "I can. As far as I know, *only* I can. The number of people who work with soulsteel is relatively small. The number of Necromancers in all of existence is vanishingly tiny, especially powerful ones. The Deathlords --the big thirteen ghosts who happened to get old and powerful enough to reach their ridiculous parody despot status-- have no use for *un*making it. They want as much as possible, and they want to put it to use. It's the one Magical Material that resonates properly with all of their intended uses. I created the proper Necromantic methods to dissolve soulsteel from scratch, for . . . reasons. It's not quick and it's not easy. If you're hoping to see a hundred battleships and all of Skullstone's infrastructure broken up any time soon, prepare to wait. If I had the means available to do it quickly on a mass scale, I'd have aimed it at the last two armies." Another, smaller pause. "It's a work in progress."

    Azure Armature has something that makes Bloody Revelations prop her elbows up on the table in interest, leaning in instead of out. "Possibly. I don't know enough about them. I know the methods to forge soulsteel, where to dig up the raw ore from the Labyrinth, how to beat a soul into it, but I *also* know that deep, deep, deep into the Labyrinth, where *veeery* few people dare to go, you'll find that Soulsteel sometimes just 'happens'. Dreamt up by the Neverborn, perhaps? Or some sort of natural formation. A 'virgin' steel, without ghosts involved in its being. Very rare. I've been interested in it in, but passingly. Nobody who uses soulsteel has the moral inclination to risk that much to get so little on moral grounds."

    Staren gets to the beefy questions, which involves the Deathknight flipping open a book, turning it around, and sliding it over the table to him. It's written in Old Realm, one part being religions text from the Immaculate Order --the dominant religion of Creation-- and the other part being a diagram of . . . a weird crow? "Nothing." she begins, with little more than a sharp, acidic interjection. "There's not *supposed* to be anything. You might have heard of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. It's not a real place. It's a figurative thing. A mechanism of Creation. There are gods in Heaven whose job it is to see to it that all the previous accumulation of memories and skills and emotions and abilities are properly put through it and scrubbed clean, ready to be used again. The soul --that is, the higher soul, containing intelligence, not the lower soul that animates the flesh-- is to them a interchangeable battery unit that makes fleshy things tick."
Staren     Staren looks at the diagrams, reads, listens.

    "...Wait."

    Staren looks up at Bloody Revelations, wide-eyed. "You mean that NOTHING in the physics of Creation mandates death... the GODS have to do it manually to every soul that comes in?!"

    He stares into space, processing this and possibly wondering how hard it would be to kill some gods and shortcut things.
Bloody Revelations     "The Immaculates, and most other religions, teach you that you'll be reincarnated better or worse off depending on your deeds and convictions. Of course they can't possibly prove it, because it's completely fake. A dogma invented to make certain that everyone accepts reincarnation at the moment of their death and keeps the wheels turning, rather than stay who they are as a ghost and drain resources away from Creation. It's completely random. A total crapshoot every time. Nothing is stored or saved or preserved. The soul is fired right back out and left to the tender mercies of chance."

    "To change that, you'd have to change how Creation itself is meant to function; you'd be required to fiddle in the celestial machinery the Primordials themselves installed when they designed Creation's original, unsullied form. The gods don't know how to use it any other way but for recycling." She levels her gaze extremely intensely at Staren for a moment, staring straight into his eyes with her own, smouldering just for a moment with the kind of outwardly directed, pure and intense hatred that can only come from talking about something deeply personal. "Creation *cannot* be fixed. It's already broken beyond repair. Give up on it."

    Brushing that off, she continues answering, pouring herself some liquor and going through it real fast already. "A higher soul lingering on as a ghost happens out of sheer force of will. A human refuses the powerful pull of Lethe out of a desire to see some unfinished business completed, an attachment to something they can't give up, or some other grand design. Ghosts are, without the involvement of magic, those who defy the natural order because they need to stay themselves, whether that's for years or centuries. They aren't supposed to be possible. Ghosts didn't *exist* until the first Exalted broke life and death by killing the unkillable Primordials."

    "The Underworld itself didn't exist until then either, and isn't supposed to be possible. All of it is a pale, partial imitation of Creation, and of life, because those things were carefully designed by a cadre of godlike beings who created it from nothing. The stability and permanence and proper functioning of existence all comes down to their designs; something not even the Exalted are even slightly capable of comprehending. The Underworld, and any other form of death, is . . . hazy. There's a lot of debate. It's universally accepted, however, that it arises from the Neverborn. The Primordials that died, but cannot die, because the entire concept is ridiculous. A fluke of reality, an unforeseen mechanic of how it works, some unconscious act of last-second creation by them, perhaps something even spun out of their memories of Creation."

    "There's a reason, at least, that below the Underworld, is the Labyrinth, and that is an entire realm that is created and shaped in a the constant churn of their thoughts and nightmares, and those who enter it, obeying no set rules but those of the mind, and below *that* is Oblivion. The Labyrinth is a means of viewing the minds of the Neverborn themselves, as their infinite thoughts and memories stir in their dreams and partially refract through the narrow lens of the material world we experience. Its substance is so mutable, born from nothing and working on nothing but concepts of thought, that the thoughts of those who enter can become impressed on their surroundings. Almost always their fears and unpleasant memories and guilty consciences, since those resonate best with the tone of what the Neverborn dream about."

    "It takes *powerful* magic to shape the Labyrinth at will, and more still to make it permanent, and to take it *out* of the Labyrinth. The same magic still works in the Underworld, but it is much more difficult, because the Underworld itself is more set and stable and solidified in everyone's collective preconceptions of what Creation is and how it should work."
Staren     That look. Eventually Staren breaks eye contact. "Right, right." He files that away as a Plan B in case Bloody Revelations comes down with a terminal case of Heroes one day -- or if he finds out she's been lying the whole time, although if she were, why would THIS be true?

    He listens intently again, and nods at the comment about the Labyrinth being shaped by the thoughts of the Neverborn and those within it. Makes as much sense as anything else about the Underworld. "It sounds like the Labyrinth is sort of like a mirror of the Feywild. But instead of being shaped by the fey..."

    Staren taps his chin, thoughtfully. "Has the Underworld ever changed size the way Creation has?"
Bloody Revelations     Latching onto Staren's midway question, she goes off track slightly to answer "Death is a fundamental part of reality. Reincarnation is a piece of the machine that is Creation. Creation didn't just *exist* before time. It was built, and it was assembled with a clean, singular purpose. The gods, the Exalted, are all just playing around with what's left of it after they got rid of its architects. Without Lethe, every single soul would linger on as a ghost, so there are those in Heaven whose make sure that doesn't happen. There are some burgeoning efforts down here to tug back the other way."

    "And don't overestimate how many Necromancers there are in supply. Few Solars currently reach a level of power where they're capable of wielding it before they're hunted down and exterminated by the Realm, and the knowledge is very hard to come by, as well as most being unwilling to learn it. A handful of Lunar Exalted tend to, but only the first circle, where they can argue it's still 'helping' Creation, as they're sworn to protect it. Borderline every Terrestrial Exalted in the world is part of the Realm or keyed to the Immaculate Order, where it's strictly forbidden, and only a couple of scattered colleges exist for it. Otherwise, you only have the Deathlords themselves, who jealously guard their power and knowledge, the few Deathknights they teach it to, and the particular ghosts blessed by the Neverborn who remain sane enough to learn it. Otherwise, it's impossible for other ghosts, despite gaining the ability to use Essence after death."

    "The Underworld isn't meant to sustain itself. At the very center of it is the Mouth of the Void, which leads down into Oblivion. All of the Underworld is essentially in a slow-motion crawl towards it, gradually falling into the Abyss. Stygia is built on it as a sort of 'capstone', full of artificial wards and geomancy that slows that process down from perhaps a century to potentially tens of thousands of years. It isn't perfect. The system isn't absolute. The only Essence in the Underworld is that which is generated by ghosts, human and otherwise, that of the Neverborn, and the Essence which constantly flows in from Creation."

    She gets out a diagram that looks like a big sort of flat earth map, with an inverted mirror right underneath it, like a reflection in water. Her finger traces from a gigantic mountain in the middle, out to the edge, then back on the underside edge, and into what looks like the usual grid-depiction of a black hole. "Life-giving Essence in Creation originates from the Imperial Mountain, at the heart of the Realm and under Heaven, then flows outward over the rest, disappears off its edges, then is sucked into the Underworld, where it flows backwards at a negative charge, and disappears into the Mouth of the Void."

    This moves onto Pavo's question. "That's important. Prayer is the . . . prime directive of the mortal races, though these days you might as well just say mortal race, singular; humans. Supposedly, it was originally the way the Primordials were able to have Creation generate its own energy, infinite and from nothing, by creating and harvesting power from an arcane mixture of the faith, belief, emotions, and conviction of ensouled beings. The Solar Exalted and Terrestrial Host wiped out practically every other race, but it was always humans, weakest of the weak, that were meant to generate the most prayer, constantly praying for benediction and protection, or else they wouldn't survive. The prayer goes to Yu-Shan --Heaven-- and materializes as a variety of things, becoming Essence, Quintessence, and solid Ambrosia, which the gods use to build and power and maintain everything. Back *then* they used it all to maintain Creation, as their Primordial creators commanded. Now, they use it for whatever they want."
Bloody Revelations     The thing is that prayer doesn't *naturally* go to Heaven. It goes to whoever one prays to, provided they do it *right*. Naturally, the Immaculate Order makes certain everyone prays to beings of Yu-Shan, but in this age, local gods, elementals, would-be god-kings, Exalted, and other things, extort or bribe prayer out of their regions to gain power themselves. Civilization in the Underworld is almost *entirely* powered by prayer. The living pray and sacrifice to the dead, and so Essence moves from Creation to the Underworld, but even the dead, still having souls, can pray to the dead as well, and create their own, closed ecosystem of power."

    She points up at the moon, for some reason, then over in the opposite direction, to a huge cluster of all the brightest stars in the sky, seemingly hung central over Stygia. "That right there, is the Calendar of Setesh. A gargantuan machine that ghosts built eons ago to collect and focus prayer, and in doing so, it creates *time* in the Underworld. The Calendar runs on the prayer of all ghosts in the entire Underworld, and it moves the sun and the moon, makes the seasons flow, and generates night and day and weather and growth and decay. Sufficient belief, dedication, sacrifice, *prayer*, can do anything."

    "Because it's the main source of Essence in the Underworld, the whole economy is centrally built on praying to the Dual Monarchs that rule Stygia, and their accumulation of all that Essence into a central bank of stored Essence." she taps the gem-coins. "That's the central guarantee of economic stability. A lot of ghosts trade it directly, but Stygian mint is guaranteed." Bloody Revelations breaks into a little bit of a smirk. "Of course, the Deathlords raise their own cults to grow fat on Essence from prayer. I myself have two different . . . loose associations. One of many sources of the Essence I use."

    She then cracks open another book, which seems to be entirely dedicated to recording the cultural customs of ritual prayer and sacrifice throughout all of Creation over several ages, compounded into a massive, skin-bound tome that must have been a big cost to take from a deep Stygian library. It's slid over to Pavo. "There are a lot of ways to do it. Some more effective than others. Prayer that involves a sacrifice, usually ritual burning, of something appropriate always generates the most power. The traditional form is carefully prepared 'prayer strips', or talismans, but you'll find people burning possessions, cattle, even slaves, depending on where you go."

    "*Very* importantly, when these things are sacrificed as part of someone's *funeral rites*, those things are recreated in the Underworld. Mirrors of the real thing. Grave goods." She picks up one of the knicknacks, specifically a beautiful ceramic vase, and then abruptly smashes it against the table. "This is one. Stygia trades in them as much as Essence. Why? Because they're valuable. Why more valuable than just making things themselves?" She just leaves it, and lets the vase slowly and mistily re-form *itself* over a minute. "Because Grave Goods are impressions. Memories of the thing, conceptually imprinted on the Underworld. They're permanent. Clothes mend themselves. Gourds refill themselves. Animals are reborn as 'plasmics', which are tireless and immortal and unfailingly obedient. Even sacrificed slaves are made permanently loyal to those they were sacrificed to, and cannot reincarnate at all, without the intervention of Necromancy. Everything *about* the Underworld is like this. More permanent. More stable. Set in its ways. Entrenched. Stagnant, in many senses, but also completely bereft of the fundamental chaos that eats Creation by the day."
Azure Armature "It's because the world is broken, and the structures that support it are likewise machines manned by laborers and overseen by laborers, and thus you get a laborer's answer. Not to question, to refine, to maintain, to revere. When you ask a lever-puller what to do with a lever, what answer do you expect?" Armature begins, hanging on the 'Creation's reincarnation is fucked' point for a bit.

She puffs on her strange cigar, her voice taking on a mild husk as she gets into it. "The answers are those divined by laborers after upending the system and burning down the manual texts. I thought it odd that not once had I heard of true karmic memories, of the worth of a soul, of the functioning system of reincarnation. It's pathetic."

"Why is the world this way? Because it's run by lever-pullers and thugs who think the answer to 'but the lever is stuck, and hard to pull' is 'pull harder', not 'apply grease' or 'perform proper cleaning and maintenance'."

Armature settles down with a long, angry set of puffs that slow and calm to a more measured long-pulls from her beam-cigar (or whatever it is).

"Natural Soulsteel is not strictly the purview of the Neverborn. But I do not know the secret to its formation, nor the secret to the formations of the other naturally occuring metals. They are as brass and iron to me - veins in the firmament."
Staren     Staren listens some more, just taking it in... although when Bloody Revelations points at the moon he wonders, "Why is there a moon? What even /is/ the moon?" It's promptly answered! Oh.

    Staren looks appropriately impressed at the regenerating vase. Just as he's about to ask if a regenerating cow means infinite burgers though, she brings up slaves and he looks like he's just seen something incredibly disgusting. "Sacrificed slaves... are they just impressions too, or minds and souls trapped forever?"

    Staren glances at Azure. "Or build a machine that automatically pulls the lever. Or redesign the machine the lever is a part of so it doesn't need lever-pulling at all..."
Haguro The idea of naturally occurring soulsteel that just exists minus the soul is not quite as hard to stomach as Haguro figured it would be upon hearing about it. Bloody Revelations being the likely sole source of unsoulifying soul steel, meanwhile...

That's actually just fine for Haguro. "It certainly sounds like a long-term project, then. aside from simply having more time to just... Do all of that work, I don't imagine there's many ways we could really help with that." She sounds somewhat disappointed, but perks up moments later. ".. But if you do find out any ways, please let us know."

Wandering Dog might not be around to ask questions, but Haguro can at least make some sort of hamfisted attempt at helping sort out that business he had.

Listening to the description of the Mouth of the Void and Oblivion, Haguro looks from the diagram to Bloody Revelations several times as yet more thoughts swim in her head. Just how slow is it all moving? Can it be reversed? Should it be reversed? Considering who she's hearing this from, though, Haguro opts for an entirely different question.

"So a sacrifice that's personal to the... Um. Sacrificer would be incredibly powerful, then? Compared to... 'Regular' sacrifice of someone they don't know or care about?" It's question not so much tied to any particular plan as it is curiousity. Even Haguro realizes that a moment later, though, and she withdraws for a moment before speaking up again.

"About Oblivion. What happens if Creation is allowed to just... Fall in, in a sense?" She seems apprehensive as she glances around, apparently wary of freaking anyone out too much should she speak too loudly. Thus, she lowers her voice! "Where does everything go after that?"
Azure Armature "You can't build a Process to take the role of a lever-puller. That defeats the purpose of the fulfilling and necessary job of the lever-puller." Armature returns, before blowing smoke vertically into the air. "One must take care not to remove the working parts."
Bloody Revelations     The last question currently of order is two on Necromancy. "Speaking of which, Necromancy is, like most things to do with death, the inverted mirror of Sorcery. It is, fundamentally, Sorcery that runs on Death Essence, instead of the living Essence of Creation. Considering Sorcery already did most everything the ancient Solars ever wished for, the Terrestrial Exalted aren't powerful enough to dabble past what they did, and Necromancy is so rare and practiced by so few, it's a very young field. Nobody truly knows where its limits lie. The Third Circle was only considered theoretical until a few centuries ago, and those who aren't Deathlords who have learned that far, I can count on one hand."

    "Plenty is already possible, though. Outside of obviously summoning, binding, and banishing ghosts, you can meddle with the soul to guarantee its future after death, or to reshape it, altering attributes, memories, thoughts. Possession is possible, as is instantaneous transportation --something *not* possible with Sorcery--, invoking instant death, or flat out denying death the moment someone is supposed to die. Reshaping the Underworld into just about anything, dragging Creation *into* the underworld, or at least creating a Shadowland, designing and creating creatures and machines and alchemy impossible without it. If you're powerful enough, you can summon even Hekatonkhire, let the Labyrinth spill out anywhere through you, level armies in one blow, raise fortresses in an hour, make every word from your mouth an absolute order, shatter magic, snuff out divine power, and even call directly upon the Neverborn themselves. There are stranger things still."

    "To use it, you need the ability to channel and direct Essence-" she cuts herself off briefly. "Mana. Psychic energy. Whatever. You need to be able to do that, and you need to have a trascendental understanding of death, far exceeding any ordinary person's. There are a few different colleges of the craft with their own ideas, but it's universally accepted as a basic system that the only feasible way to guarantee that someone has a real shot at reflecting upon, and understanding, death itself to the point they can challenge it, is with a set of usually-five specific 'stations'. Trials. Projects. Grand exercises."

    She looks to Staren. "I had, and still have, my doubts about you pulling it off, because it isn't merely an academic understanding. On certain levels, it *demands* that you accept certain aspects of death. That you viscerally, intrinsically, intimately understand what it is in ways most people would rather not, and be happier for it. It requires that you cast aside certain notions and feelings, and let the truth into your head, and the truth is not cooperative with what living things like to think --or not think. You don't examine it from the outside and play with it. You have to let a little part of death into your psyche before you can tell it what to do."
Staren     "What even is a 'transcendental understanding of death'?" Staren asks. Revel says a lot of things to him. After she finishes speaking, he looks away for a moment, then back at her. "Wait a moment. /You're/ planning to create an eternal paradise filled with immortal ghosts, and you're one of the most powerful necromancers in existence!"
Bloody Revelations     With the big onslaught of burning questions on various minds finally hashed out, Bloody Revelations makes a meaningless gesture towards Azure Armature. "It's as she said. The gods, despite what they pretend at now, were *created* to be nothing more than labourers. Administrators, accountants, low engineers, grunt workers. Even o mighty Sol Invictus once had the job of little more than pushing the sun around the sky. They didn't like it. They wanted what the Primordials had. So they took it."

    "They couldn't rebel, because the Primordials designed them to be incapable of it, but they didn't install the same failsafe in humans because humans were far too pathetically weak to matter, and numerous enough for it to be tedious. Two particular Primordials turned against the rest. One designed the Exaltations. Those were the weapons given to humans by the gods, with the promise of having a better world once the Primordials were dead. Of course, the effort destroyed almost the *entire* world, but with what was left, they kept that promise for a little while, and stopped even that."

    She suddenly gets a more serious look. "There are places here in the Underworld. Places people don't usually go. Memories of the first Neverborn to die, which still represent huge pieces of Creation that no longer exist. The ghosts of species, loyal to the Primordials, that were rendered extinct. Demons slain and inverted into something else. All the strange things that Hekatonkhire can come from. No gods, however. Never gods. Gods don't exist here; at least they don't unless they find a Necromancer to manually invert their very being, so they can rule in a place with no competition."

    She mostly waves off the thing about slaves. "Come on. Even you should realize that slaves exist. Large parts of Creation run on them. The Guild trades in them all over the world. It's inevitable that some of the more extreme cultures sacrifice them. They reincarnate as ghosts, of course, but ghosts supernaturally bound to serve their master, compelled into slavery in their second life too. The only real upside to that kind of life is that it's borderline impossible to be sent to Lethe as long as the master lives."

    She makes another, iffy gesture at Haguro, now reclining in her seat with her fourth(?!) entire bottle. "Usually. It depends. Blood, especially, is an extremely dense medium of sacrificial Essence. *All* Necromancy requires at least a little. Living blood, that is. Ghosts don't have real blood. The preparation and emotional investment in the sacrifice also matters, however. Sacrificing a chunk of wood will get you next to nothing, but the process of long hours carving it into an elaborate totem of your funeral culture imbues it with much more sacrificial potency."

    At the last question from her though, Bloody Revelations smiles. It is not a nice smile. "Ask that question to anyone and they'll tell you the same thing; it ceases to exist. The Deathlords will all tell you that the Neverborn desire to fall into Oblivion because it's the only thing that can finally end their suffering, but that isn't possible so long as Creation itself anchors them into unlife, *just* like people's attachments to life anchor them as ghosts. Oblivion is the ultimate force of Unmaking. A complete cessation of existence. Utter and pure destruction."

    "That's what they'll tell you, anyways."
Starbound Flotilla     Pavo's eyes are alight. "Pulling raw power out of faith by sacrificing. I get it." She points a finger square at Bloody Revelations. "I want to work with you. See how small we can close that ecosystem. Find out how tiny the arcology can get before it can't sustain itself. I want to see why ghosts and gods can't live off of praying to themselves, and then I want to find a way to do it myself." The former may be viable, but the latter is probably impossible. Pavo has that Look in her eyes like she actually doesn't give a shit.

    "Floran will guesss, cat friend need to transsscend thjat cognitive disssonance." Biteblade speaks up, prodding at Staren. "Floran thinksss, cat friend iss imagining after/life/, not after/death/. Very important difference! Maybe. Floran can't make ssskeleton dance like spooky friend."

    "What I seek out is one thing in particular." Moonfin asks, stepping forward a bit. "All of what lies above, all of Creation, it is damaged by unnatural, unbalanced aspects. Presumably ever since the loss of the architects. I need to know, quite particularly, what aspects of the world shall be rendered more natural and balanced by the process, and if such balancing effects might be produced at smaller scales even ahead of time." He crosses his arms, not critically, but with a sort of determined posture.

    "New systems for the flow of prayer, of sacrifice, of souls, of reincarnation -- we have now, in our grasp, many resources and much expertise that could allow us localized efforts, and ones that might be weaponized. The ecosystems you spoke of, are there ways we can make the natural order of things invasive? Skullstone was a sham, a use of the old orders and old ways. You seek no position of leadership beyond directing our group, but are there routes we might seek to eat at the roots with something superior before its inevitability takes effect?"
Starbound Flotilla     "'That's what they'll tell you.' But they don't know shit, huh? That's why we come to you." George says, leaning back and taking a swig of the kind of drink that would kill him if the drink itself wasn't already dead. "How do /you/ tell it?"
Bloody Revelations     A slowwwww, gradual shift of gaze goes over to Staren. "I plan on doing a lot better than un-fucking what the Deathlords have done to the Underworld. Your imagination is lacking. I've spent two decades in the Labyrinth. Charting the minds of the Neverborn. Communing with Oblivion itself. I learned my Necromancy, by baptism into the Void Circle of Obsidian, on my own. No manuals. No stations. No Deathlord tutoring. I know things and can do things the Deathlords *refuse* to believe I know and can do, because it offends their arrogance to even entertain the idea that someone could do it without them; that their masters might favour another over them. I've only just dug beneath the surface of what is possible."

    "The petty aims of what they've achieved with an entire plane of reality at their disposal is laughably short-sighted. Egotistical. Ridiculous. All they do is twist what they're given into rebuilding a black pantomime of exactly the lives they lived as god-kings in Creation. All they do is work on ways to retread old ground and have the same power and the same wealth and the same amenities in death. I have absolute faith in things most refuse to believe even exist."

    "I don't much care for their opinions though. Brilliant as they are on paper, their limited minds are nothing compared to those of the Neverborn, and they're too conceited to learn anything from them."
Staren     Staren nods. "Okay. I get that. And that does sound -- that /is/ Seriously Impressive. But the point stands -- if 'paradise filled with immortals' is even the palest shadow of a description of what you seek to create, it sounds like you reject the, the fated necessity of death as much as I do."
Haguro      That certainly helps sort out a few things in Haguro's mind. One, there's more than one side even to this Oblivion matter and what would happen should what all Creation fears comes to pass. Two, Bloody Revelations is probably not as sane as she originally thought.

    Then again, what hero is? Turning to Moonfin and Staren, the shipgirl hesitates for just a moment before speaking up. "I've died before. Um... A-at least three times by now, if I haven't... Er. Repressed any more than the most recent few and my first time."

     Another chuckle, another awkward attempt at humor. "It's... I guess it's not quite an end for someone like myself as it would be for you so much as it's just a cycle of sorts?" She shrugs lightly, then turns back to Bloody Revelations and nodding in agreement with George's assessment. "That's what that sounds like. The Neverborn might know more, but have you been able to prove anything they've told you? I-I mean, even if they're telling you things, without knowing that they really do know the truth about what they're saying..."
Staren     Staren nods to Haguro, "Yes, yes, I've 'died' too. Real death, what we're fighting against, is oblivion though, the cessation of existence -- or being sent off to that greater afterlife that everyone claims exists but noone really /acts/ like they really believe it does in the manner they say."
Azure Armature "Everyone?"

"No-one?"

Armature puffs some more. "I doubt the extremity of those words. Still, if you are programmed to survive, it is hard to march to death."
Bloody Revelations     The Flotilla has the big ones. Bloody Revelations snaps her fingers in the direction of the Floran, then seems to struggle with remembering her name for a second. "Biteblade . . . isn't far off. You can't hope to use Necromancy, to breathe in death and breathe out your will, if you view death as an obstacle rather than a tool. An enemy to be defeated instead of an entity that demands respect and must be handled intelligently. You can beat a wild dog into submission until it no longer attacks you, but you can't make that dog useful until it identifies with you, understands you, incorporates you into its life, and respects you enough to do what you commands, and Death is far, far and away something bigger than an animal --bigger than you."

    She mostly just looks vaguely interested at Pavo. "An interesting idea. You want to try building your own cult? Your own little test society and see how it works out? That might even be a worthy experiment. I'd certainly glance over those findings. You'll have to pick your place and your people carefully, though. The Lunar Exalted especially love setting up 'arcologies' of their own, screwing with the people to follow some ludicrous utopian ideal they made up, then wiping it out when it never goes according to plan. It's not exactly an unknown quantity here."

    Moonfin asks the *difficult* thing though. That one has to get the Deathknight to put on her serious face again, and stop halfway through the getting-kind-of-ridiculous drinking for a bit. "Everything I hate disappears. I hate the worthlessness of human souls. I hate that we're considered expendable. That nothing we do in life matters or is worth considering. I hate that the celestial and terrestrial gods are automatically somehow better. That they run on completely different rules, where they're immortal and powerful and dictate everything just because they once had a responsibility they were designed to perform. They wear their jobs like royal titles."

    "I hate that *people*, not absurd spirits, the things that even the Primordials gave complete freedom while the 'mighty' divines were there to be, as she puts it, lever pullers, no longer have the ability to survive in this world at their own power. I hate that the only way for a human being to be relevant --to matter to the world-- is to be born Terrestrial or be even luckier, and that anyone without those powers lives entirely at the mercy or forgetfulness of everything else in the cosmos. I hate that Creation was stolen from its creators and that deemed right and good, but then stolen again from the degenerate tyrants who first stole it, and how all of Heaven decides *now* that it's an atrocity, and works against the people trying to keep their reality from collapsing."

    "I hate the Wyld. I hate chaos. I hate the Fair Folk. I hate that the great work that birthed every single concept that ever existed can be completely undone at the whim of a horrid rainbow miasma and a parade of deranged fairies, and that even *they* can't be dealt with by people unless the cosmos decided they matter. I hate that powers exist that can twist anyone into anything and erase all of what it was before. I hate that Creation is not only a disgusting, rotting, cancerous totem pole of things that are powerful for no reason sitting atop people who aren't powerful for just as little reason, but that nothing that happens in it *matters*. Nothing lasts. Nothing is recorded. Nothing is permanent. Nothing comes back once it's gone. Nothing has a purpose and it all might as well have never existed once it's run its course and time runs forwards without ever looking back, and the only thing that matters is how long you can *cling* to existence, either enjoying your power or staving off nihilism until *you* never existed either. It's. Sick."
Bloody Revelations     "The Underworld is . . . a model. It opened my eyes to the idea that something else is possible. It's flawed. Fundamentally. Horribly, in some ways. Even then, though, there are no gods but the repulsive self-made Deathlords. There is no Heaven. *People* are at the core of all existence, and are all that matters. There is no Wyld, no chaos. No randomly selected Exalted. Theoretically, no death or scarcity or disaster. Everyone has access to Essence, and so anyone is exactly what they make of themselves, unless the cancer the Deathlords planted here gets to them first. No deadline. No limited time. An eternity to live as you please, and for whatever you achieve to stay. The Underworld remembers. It lasts. Even when you can't see it, you can *recall* it from its very fabric."

    It . . . very much sounds like the kind of thing she wouldn't get into if she weren't at least kind of tipsy at the moment. It's angry, and bitter, but also eerily sincere, without condescension or coyness or insult.

    "Right!" she yells to George. "They're full of *shit*! How fucked in the head do you have to be to think that Oblivion is the end of everything, yet be so *mad* about being killed, and so *desperate* for power, that you're willing to throw *yourself* into it as long as you get 'a long time' to play around as god-kings? Because that's what it is! All the Neverborn promised them was 'eventually'! The idea that it'd take a 'very long time' for everything to follow them into the Void, and the Deathlords could just *have* it for that long! And even then, they all plan to be the only one left! The one thing they couldn't get in life! Absolute power, without two hundred and ninety nine other Solars barely tempering their insanity!"

    "I know them better than they do, though. The Neverborn only ever speak directly to the Deathlords when they need to. The Deathlords don't *hear* them. They don't hear the Whispers. They can't. I hear them. I talk to them. I talk to her most of all. I've gone deeper into the Labyrinth than they ever have. I've walked right into those god-tombs as a borderline *equal* compared to them! They know *nothing*! They were the most useful tools at hand at the time, and they aren't *needed* anymore. The Neverborn will only guarantee their immunity for as long as they're necessary to destroy Creation, and after all this time they *still haven't*. The Abyssal Exalted-- no, *I* am more than enough to see it gets done! Just . . . one more. Maybe two. They won't be able to deny me for long. Even he will have to admit it. Once those bastards are gone, they'll have me and only me, and I'll prove it!"
Bloody Revelations     Maybe realizing she's getting carried away, she suddenly stops, and asks George the most George-like question he's probably ever been asked. "So, the Wyld, outside Creation, is raw chaos, yes? Formless, infinite potential, that can't be nailed down as anything. Something that goes into the Wyld dissolves into nothingness, and all the . . . information about it is lost irretrievably. At the Bordermarches, where it erodes Creation, you get screwed up, mutable reality, where things change all the time, which only kind of make sense, and things that go there get warped and overwritten, and become things they weren't supposed to be, and whatever was written over is lost. Then you have what's left of Creation, stable enough. Things mostly obey rules and are reliable and consistent, but aren't when the gods slack off, and things break and go strange. Things stay as they're supposed to, but eventually they decay and break down and have to be unmade and recycled as if they never existed. Then below *that* you have the Underworld, where things, people, souls, are preserved. Where everything lasts a really long time. Where things leave deep, even if subtle, marks that are hard to erase, and where things tend to gravitate to returning to normal. A place where consistency is enforced much more strongly, in the minds of everyone, instead of just the hands of gods."

    "So why, one step further than *that*, would Oblivion suddenly be identical to the Wyld again? Formless nothing, where anything that enters dissolves into nothing and is lost irretrievably. How would that break the pattern? The Underworld wasn't created out of Oblivion, like Creation was created from the Wyld. It flows down. The Wyld, Bordermarches, Creation, Underworld, Oblivion. Any scholar knows that. How can it delete things on both ends."

    "I think it's professional chauvinism. The fact that because you can't see it, it doesn't exist. I think the Neverborn know what's down there, and I think the Deathlords won't accept the idea of there being something they can't rule over, and so they think of it as nothingness, and I think *that* is convenient for their masters."
Bloody Revelations     "I reject nihilism dressed up in pretty words." she shoots at Staren. "Death is always necessary. Death is a process. It's a mechanic. A tool, when put in the hands of humans. Death is not the cessation of ever having been, and the fact that the two are inextricably linked disgusts me to the core. Even in a 'paradise', death must exist, even if only as a fallback. A necessary failsafe."

    "You cannot argue that your ideal world has the capacity for people to dispose of something they've made and create something new out of it, yet does not contain death in any form. Even people are, ultimately, something you can only perceive as 'information'. Even when souls are involved. Even then, though, death should not --cannot-- be what it is in Creation. Ghosts can be killed, they can die, but as long as they can keep it up, they won't cease to exist."

    She then lets out a short, sharp laugh to Azure. "Sick, isn't it? Given the instinct to live, because there's nothing for you in death, but being taught to go against what the makers gave you and accept the 'proper' flow of death as a *reward*."
Starbound Flotilla     George sits, he ponders, he taps his chin. He runs through a process in his mind. Gears turn, but they turn in well-greased, smooth ways. He starts to nod. "Oblivion's like a black hole, yeah? Stuff falls in, it never goes out. You're talking about..." He starts to nod repeatedly, and grin. "Where I come from, there's all kinda guys with fancy degrees who think about what you're talkin'. Scale the size of the universe and the galaxies around it just right, squint a little bit, and..."

    He curls his fingers near his cheek, leaning on the hand so that his beard juts over the fingers in a way that oscillates between contemplative and insolent. "Well." He says. "Way I see it, if you're meaning that the Underworld's one big event horizon for Oblivion's black hole, can't say I'm seein' fault." He swirls his drink, watching it circle around. "Gotta say, I can't argue with someone whose solution to this kind of business is to dump it in a black hole, just never thought I'd see the reasoning with science and not with nihilism." He takes a swig. Does he agree? Disagree? What does he mean by the references to the event horizon? Who knows.
Staren     "I don't want death to be a tool." Staren scratches his chin. "Well, I guess that's not really true, is it? I use it all the time by killing people and things that are making the world worse. Without death, they'd just go on torturing people or whatever and then where would I be?"

    Staren listens to the speech like he agrees with every word, although less fervently after passing the bit about the past not having any meaning if it's not remembered and getting double extra philosophical. Perhaps he's distracted by pondering the philosophy involved.

    Still, it's one of the best speeches he's ever heard. And then she continues! he tilts his head and looks thoughtful as she describes the positive attributes of the underworld. And as she describes becoming the only basically-deathlord, he frowns a bit. So far, that doesn't solve the problems she just outlined about the other deathlords... "You think Oblivion is actually a disconnected realm, like the afterlife so many people in the Multiverse believe in? I do hope you plan to bet the fate of all Creation -- not to mention fixing all the issues you just described -- on certain evidence rather than just a pattern. A pattern may make a prettier map, but the point of a map is to guide you where you want to go, not to fit together nicely. No, no, you're not that crazy. You have evidence... So why can't you show it to us?"

    Staren furrows his brow as she points out the necessity of death. "Well... Obviously a failsafe is better than someone being trapped in pain forever. And at least as a practical concern, I'm less focused on eliminating death completely than I am on making it not so easy to happen /accidentally/. Or just after several decades just because nature or gods or whatever designed crappy bodies that don't last."

    Staren takes a breath. "Anyway, death isn't a dog. It's more like... the ocean. Death doesn't understand you -- it happens. We take advantage of it -- eating dead animals, for instance, like fishing -- and protect ourselves from it, with medicine and care being like building boats. But sometimes a storm comes in, an especially virulent disease, and regular ol' boats aren't good enough. And if you refuse to accept that storms happen, you'll never build a better boat or a seawall to withstand those storms. You can use the ocean -- throwing in your enemies with cement shoes or, I suppose tidal power plants would be necromantic essence in this analogy? It's really stretching, here. But the ocean doesn't /care/. It can never be your /friend/, no matter how you see it. It simply /is/."

    Staren scratches his chin. "I honestly haven't gotten as far as imagining a totally ideal world. I keep getting bogged down in practical matters like making sure noone can steal the control codes to Paradise and torture everyone else -- and that people can't /accidentally/ make it horrible and then forbid anyone from ever leaving. I'm not sure anything /should/ just be forgotten, even something bad that people then replace with something new..."

    Staren looks like he's thinking about it.
Bloody Revelations     Bloody Revelations goes on at a slower sip, pointedly not directly confirming or denying George in that very George way. The 'you're ninety five percent right and I applaud your efforts, so I look forward to seeing your reaction when the last five percent clicks in' way, exactly.

    It's a lesser extent with Staren. "Think what you'd like to think about what I think. Of course I have 'evidence' though; don't be an embarrassing buffoon. Did you miss the part about *twenty years* in the Labyrinth? Physically entering the bodies of certain Neverborn on multiple occasions? Learning the Void Circle from the Whispers alone? There's a growing cadre of spectres, nephwracks, even Hekatonkhire, who align with my way of thinking. The big similarity between them, you'll notice, is that they're both dead, and either considered alien or considered insane. How well do you think your mind would hold up to *direct* exposure to that knowledge?"

    A long sip. A longer pause. The one more sentence with no context forthcoming at all.

    "I've thrown myself into the Mouth of the Void once before."

    Then moving right along. "Precisely. If you couldn't kill, then you'd be borderline useless at solving your problems. The fact is that once you allow the potential for something to cease being in the pattern it's in, as you need to without infinite space to maintain infinite patterns, you've allowed for the idea of death. All you can do to pretend otherwise is choose what counts as a person, and people as hard to disrupt as you can. A bandage. A fix for those with small brains. An elegant creator, one with vision, makes it so that dissolving a pattern doesn't remove it. A state of being in which information is indestructible.."

    "Mind your awkward analogies about death, though. Anthromorphization is how human beings are designed to deal with anything they need to incorporate into the narrative of their lives; to predict and anticipate and manipulate and avoid and direct and trick and gain the cooperation of, as the situation demands. Even if it isn't something capable of thought, you attribute aspects of being to something complicated and demanding your respect. You attribute them to machines. You attribute them to chance. You can't look at death with dehumanizing derision, and expect it to work with you."
Staren     Staren nods at the comment about learning the truth driving you insane without careful preparation, and looks impressed at the implication that she's /been/ to Oblivion. Still, without proof he does have to maintain at least some idea of 'what if it's all a lie'.

    "Yes, and it's a flaw in humans' minds. In worlds where there aren't, in fact, sky gods, you can't fly by bargaining with the sky -- you instead have to learn how reality works and build a plane. I don't attribute human traits to machines, or chance for that matter. Otherwise I couldn't use machines as tools subjected to situations that I'd never subject people to, even sacrificed casually."

    Staren scratches the side of his head and makes a 'there's a frustrating misunderstanding here and I don't know how to clear it up' face. "You can't dehumanize what isn't human to begin with. It's not /derision/, it simply is what it is. The sea or the sky or space or death... nature, the laws of reality, simply /are/. If you're saying that to use necromancy I have to treat it as a person... imagine that death has goals, wants, needs, instincts, emotions. feelings, hopes, dreams..." Staren makes that face again. "You're right. I don't dare risk bending my mind that way. Even if I can avoid doing it when it /doesn't/ get me power... doing it in the first place would be corrupting my own goals. I'd be a little less able to use my power to make the world better for /people/, because I'd also have to worry about what /death/ wants, whatever /that/ means."

    Staren sighs. "I suppose this is where you ask me, how useful can my ways of thinking be if they deny me sources of power like sorcery and necromancy... and if you can't see, I'm not sure I can answer. We can still work together though. Is there anything you can explain about your process for making ghosts whole again without their lower soul?"
Azure Armature "I don't think she is asking you that." Azure gestures with her cigar all around. "I do not think it is a judgement. You have been a powerful, capable ally. Easily proving that strategizing with you, and allowing you to leverage your talents, is equal or better than the uncoordinated efforts of easily twice again our number." She continues, her tone light and factual like reciting a resturant's menu - particular, but positive and mildly expectant.

"To master death, to have it empower you - the Bloody Revelation's own Necromantic arts - she is saying that is the step you must take, should you want it."

She rests her smoking arm's elbow on her stomach, the tip of the apparatus dimming slowly. "Your ideals are not something that should be abandoned for power. They are what grant you the force to move on. Compromising them and rationalizing that away is what all the failures of this world did, and look at the state of it."

"Broken."

"Denying sources of power that would change your meaning, the mark you seek to make, is simply retaining the shape of your mark. I could tell you with absolute certainty that I know of a power where I am from that would give me unsurpassed might: the cost would be that I would be no better than the filth of my society, impure and traitor. What does that say about my ideals? That they are worth compromise, that individual choices don't matter if the whole is good?"

"It's lunacy of a different sort. A self-defeating thought. Compromising on matters of principle permanently erodes you."